How much advantage is there in the USMC’s concept of operations? Is it really quite disadvantageous to have the Navy provide fixed-wing support to USMC operations? It seems like the USMC is trying to be a concentrate of all the other branches combined.
Just awesome.
Is the F-35 superior in any way to the F-15, F-16, or F/A-18 aside from stealth and the fancy helmet-display system? Any avionics that couldn’t conceivably be added to the 4th-gen planes? Because it seems to me that the F-35 might be a capable light stealth strike fighter, but once you load some external weapons it’s not much more than an obscenely expensive F-16.
If you compare it to an F-16:
The wing area is about 50% larger, the empty weight is about 50% larger, the loaded weight is close to 100% larger. The dry and wet thrusts are also on the order of 50%+ larger. The combat radius seems to be about 100% larger.
It seems to be halfway between the F-16 and the F-15E.
Keep in mind though that when it comes to these sorts of aircraft, stealth and avionics seem to comprise the bulk of the value and price.
Whizbang U.S. military Engine technology still breaks when it’s hit by a missile, sucks in a foreign object or was maintained by an idiot. When that happens, pilots happen to enjoy being able to rely on a spare.
Which would be ducky if the F-35 was a Marine Corps project.
But it’s not - the F-35 is slated to replace not just the USMC’s aging Harriers (which it admittedly beats with one wing tied behind its back before stealing its lunch money and making out with its lady friend), but also the USAF’s F-16s, F-15s, and A-10s as well as the Navy’s F-18s. One size fits all !
And sure, it cannot boast the performances of any of these birds in their respective dedicated roles but you know, no biggie.
That’s less important than the thrust/weight ratio, which is more or less a measure of manoeuvrability. The F-16 is a beast in that regards. As* Dos Gringos* puts it, it “can fly right up its own asshole” 
That being said, I’ll readily admit to being a terminally non-objective F-16 fan. That bird is so gosh darned purdy ! It’s sex on wings, is what it is.
Because of its stealth, it will probably be able to defeat all those aircraft (and every other 4th gen fighter in the world) on the same consistent basis that the F-22 defeats those airplanes in air-to-air combat. As in, any of those airplanes would be dead before they ever knew another stealth fighter was in the area.
it would be fairly challenging to add IRST (basically a long-range optical sensor) or electronic attack the the airplanes you mention (with the caveat that the E/A-18 Growler is a purpose built electronic attack aircraft with more limited air-to-air and strike capabilities).
Why don’t you provide a cite that single engine fighters are a mistake? Because the same guy who came up with the concept of the A-10 also claims credit for the F-16: are you saying that Pierre Sprey doesn’t know anything about what pilots want because he designed a single engine fighter?
First of all, nobody knowledgeable about recent Marine Corps weapon development history would suggest that they be given responsibility for a large unique development program again. Look at the V-22, EFV, GCSS-MC, and G/ATOR. Secondly, the F-35 has been the top priority of the Marine Corps for several years now, so I think the Marine Corps knows better than you what it’s priorities are. Thirdly, only in propaganda is the JSF a single development program: as I said before, it is three development programs called by a single name.
Look, you just don’t know what you’re talking about. Each of those planes have some advantage over the F-35, and the F-35 has huge advantages over each of those planes in other areas. It’s simply a fact, and it is not credible at all to claim that the F-35 is worse than those. Plus I notice you leave the F-117 out of that list, for which the F-35 is truly better in every respect.
Marine Corps aviation got along just fine without a gutted concept of operations before 1985. That’s when it first got the AV-8B Harrier, prior to that it had no V/STOL aircraft at all. It even managed to fight three wars in the era of aviation with its own air arm without them (WW2, Korea, Vietnam).
That’s simply asinine. It’s one airframe that in the development stage was asked to be everything to everyone. This one airframe had to be stealthy, capable of carrier operations, and able to be fitted with engines to allow V/STOL flight. It’s hardly any wonder that cost overruns started early and often, leading to the most expensive aircraft program in history. Mind you, the F-35 had its first flight in 2006 and still hasn’t achieved initial operational capability, and isn’t even slated to achieve IOC until December 2015, which, assuming that date isn’t pushed back is 9 years after first flight.
Yeah, and the Marines got along fine without body armor before that, too. And I guess we would need to bring more surface combatants back, since those were around in greater numbers back then.
It is NOT one airframe. That’s simply untrue. The C has a larger wing and a much beefier airframe. The B is slightly shorter and squatter, and is significantly heavier. Also, each model is going through its own flight sciences test program, so that expanding the flight envelope on the A model does not mean that the B or C model skips those tests. Same for static loads tests and so on; though sensor development is more common.
Moreover, the number of actual structural parts that are the same on all three models is limited, mostly relating to the engine, cockpit and sensors. Instead, most components of the airframe are “cousin” parts - as in, each model has a gonkulator, but the A model has one that’s a little smaller, the B’s one is fatter, and the C model has one that has an extra flange.
Saying that it is a common airframe would lead someone to believe that you can start building an A (or whatever) and be able to change it to another model at some point in production. This is categorically untrue. If someone told you that the F-35 has a common airframe, don’t listen to anything else that person says on this issue because they are simply wrong on a pretty fundamental issue.
Except the Marines flew the AV-8A Harriers in the 1970s.
The AV-8A entered service with the Marine Corps in 1971, replacing other aircraft in the Marines’ attack squadrons.
The USMC received 102 AV-8A and 8 TAV-8A Harriers between 1971 and 1976.
Bump because I was just linked to that video, it immediately made me think of you, then laugh like a loon :
Pierre Sprey thinks the F-35 is a turd, spends 10 minutes expounding on the subject.
Let’s keep in mind that he also didn’t want the F-16 to have a radar. How do you think that would have worked out?
And I’m laughing hysterically too when he says a MiG 21 would “whip” the F-35. He’s clearly gone off his rocker.
Yeah, he’s got a bit of a “bitter Cold War crank” thing going on, doesn’t he ? Who needs a goshdurned electronick thingamajig, son, all yer need is a Vulcan machine gun and some guts ! :). There’s a lot of silly stuff coming out of that mouth. I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about re: the F-15 either, which by all accounts is/was a pretty successful bird. Which just goes to show, authoritative name drops aren’t :).
But he’s also right about other things, like S/VTOL hardware + internal weapons bay ruining the plane’s aerodynamics ; stealth being something of a sham (he’s exaggerating a lot there, of course, but he’s also kind of right in that stealth… isn’t stealthy any more, not for other first world nations) ; tiny payload if you actually *care *about said stealth ; the thorough bureaucratic rogering the F-35 would get for being a tri-service plane with each branch tacking on more and more reqs (and that, they really REALLY should have seen coming) ; and the inherent problem in building a multi-role aircraft, i.e. it’s going to be “meh” at best in each of these roles.
Hell, the F-16’s multi-role, supposedly, but it’s kind of a crappy striker when it comes right down to it.
I wonder if the designer of the Sopwith Camel looked at the P-51 in 1943 and said, “Who needs retractable landing gear?!? And a turbocharger?? Just look at it - it has half as many wings as it needs! What a turkey!”